


Ambrosia

by Aurora_Schrodinger



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Cannibalism, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 07:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11481891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurora_Schrodinger/pseuds/Aurora_Schrodinger
Summary: Reyes and Shea try to workout their relationship after Meridian. Meanwhile, something shady is going on in the Ambrosia club in Kadara port.





	Ambrosia

The Kadaran sun was creeping through the large windows of Shea’s prefab house in Ditaeon. Reyes was still asleep and Shea spent the last five minutes watching him move unconscious, wrapped in his arms, unable and unwilling to move away. Although the air was hot already, she still enjoyed the warmth of his skin on hers. He looked peaceful, with a relaxed expression that he never wore when he was awake. His brows weren’t frowning or laughing or anything, his lips bore a faint smile, his eyes, closed, didn’t sparkle with lust or amusement. He turned around when the light hit his eyelids, and Shea moved closer to whisper in his ear.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” she said, hearing him protest in response. She hugged him from behind, feeling him startle at the touch of her hand on his arm. He kept his eyes closed but smiled, he was awake. She kissed his neck, and then kept pecking his shoulder to move him. He groaned but didn’t react, she knew the attitude, he did this when he craved attentions. She smiled, sighed, pulled him closer to lay on his back. He finally opened one eye, with a smirk. She kissed him on the lips smiling and sat on him with legs astride.

“Are you going to get up?” she asked, chuckling. She could feel his morning glory pressing against her underwear. She enjoyed it. He finally opened both his eyes and shook his head. He lifted his head to kiss her, deeply, playing with his tongue to tease her. He brought a hand to her neck, caressing her head, and then turned her around to be on top of her. He was in the mood for dancing.

Later, while he was arranging breakfast with what she had in the pantry, mostly dried food or tin cans to Reyes’ extremely eloquent disappointment, Shea checked her messages on the omni-tool. The apartment felt still quite empty. Shea tried to bring some souvenirs from her travels in the Heleus cluster, presents from Angara kids or finds from Remnant ruins, but she expected him to do the same to some extent. He didn’t even bring in his clothes. He stayed to sleep when she was there, but he kept living in his apartment at the Port when she wasn’t. He said it was the practical choice, of course, but that answer didn’t quench her uneasiness. She observed the tiny movements of his bare shoulders from behind, while he was cooking something that smelled like beans and bacon and probably egg powder with something. He didn’t look less affectionate or less invested, but what if he was pretending? While still lost in thought, she felt her wrist buzzing. It was her omni-tool. She opened the message that Ryan sent her and scrolled it down: it was a long and detailed account of a conversation he had with Christmas, the mayor of Ditaeon. In short, colonists started to disappear after going to the Port and Ryan thought that Reyes might know more and _can you please ask him_? She sighed. Her break was over.  SAM chirped from her omni-tool “I agree that asking Mr Vidal would be a sensible option. He might know more about this”. She rolled her eyes.

“Ask me what?” he said, turning around. Shea wished to at least have breakfast without talking business but apparently, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Do you know Trent Oswald?” she asked, scrolling up and down the message from Ryan to look for other useful details.

“Isn’t he the technician from the Nexus that helps in the wind farm at Varren’s Crest?” he asked back, returning to his cooking “Thanks for lending him to us, by the way, he’s helped a lot”.

“He disappeared,” she said, and suddenly noticed how his back muscles tensed and he lifted his head from the pan. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could imagine it. Right now, he was appraising the information and deciding if this was worthy of the Collective leader’s full attention. He tilted his head to the side, thoughtful. He wasn’t Reyes anymore, he was the Charlatan now. Shea could tell the difference.

“How?” he simply asked.

“We don’t know” she answered, trying to remember if the message she got from Ryan said something about it “but he went on leave to the Port and never came back”. He nodded and resumed his cooking, silent. That wasn’t the reaction she expected “Should we investigate it?” she asked, tentatively.

“He’s not the first to disappear” he answered, not answering in fact “But I didn’t know it spread to the outpost” he simply added.

“Should we investigate it?” she repeated, annoyed.

“Don’t bother, Shea, I’ll take care of it,” he said, flatly, finishing up the cooking. He put the breakfast on two nice plates she bought on Aya and served it to her at the counter. He was smiling, he had put his mask on, but he didn’t really manage to conceal well his serious expression. His mouth tried to smile, but it was sour, and his eyes, frowned, looked a shade darker than usual. It almost frightened her. She knew she had nothing to fear from the Charlatan, but she wasn’t used to seeing him often and right now she was grateful for it. He glanced at her, noticed her concerned expression, and his face softened in the usual sweet and awkward smile that was only hers. He cupped her cheek in his hand “Don’t worry, it’s probably no big deal” he said. She smiled faintly, unable to forget how his face transfigured in just a few instants.

He left her home in a hurry, just after breakfast, said he couldn’t stay, as always. As she heard his shuttle depart from the settlement, she approached the counter to clean the dishes and keep her mind occupied. She noticed that he left his brass lucky necklace that he brought from Earth. She considered messaging him to tell him but then decided that he would get it when he got back. Maybe it was a sign.

 

* * *

 

 

Reyes was browsing distractedly through the merchandise of a stall in Kadara Port market square. Angara, Turians, Krogans and Asari mercenaries were all around the place, trying to buy stuff that could be found only there. Kadara had many flaws but the good thing was that the Nexus kept a looser eye on regulations there, and it helped commerce, peace, and prosperity - greatly. While Sloane bred fear, the Charlatan inspired the quite certainty that if somebody adhered to the few rules of the Port – and paid taxes to the Collective, of course – they could consider themselves safe. The rules were simple enough: don’t mess with the Collective, or the Initiative, and don’t damage commerce. Those who disobeyed simply disappeared, sent to work on some rock in space and left there. Everything else was left unsaid, and this made room for the exchange of wares that weren’t allowed in other outposts, such as prototype weapons and biological samples. The Nexus and the Resistance looked for wares there as well, having a black market helped everyone. The taxes on commerce paid to the Collective were used in part to keep control of the city, in part to help the development of the place. People were sometimes stabbing each other in the alleys, but nobody was starving or overdosing on Oblivion anymore.

Reyes loved strolling in the beating heart of Kadara and observe, unnoticed, the fruit of his long, hard work. To see people of every species pulse, say profanities, be obscene in his city. It made him feel complete in a way he couldn’t describe and provided some sort of comfort from the anguish he bore within. His bronze skinned fingers were handling gently some kind of Angaran jelly conductor of sorts. He wasn’t particularly curious, but he needed a distraction. He couldn’t suppress his anxiety any longer, although the jelly helped, if only a little. He sighed. He knew he was hurting Shea by not speaking to her frankly about the elephant in the room, but he just couldn’t do it. How could he express it with words? He couldn’t, and he kissed it away at first, and at first, it was enough. But now things were starting to get serious and he couldn’t escape it any longer. She demanded that they talked, he could see it in her eyes. And she was right, of course, and she deserved it because she was precious, but he was just too scared. _I love you_ , there, was it so hard, Reyes? It wasn’t just the words that scared him though, it was everything that they implied. And words weren’t enough for that. A house… Emma, what about Emma? Was he expected to be a father to her, when he barely knew his? How could it even work? He couldn’t even start to hope for that kind of happiness. He sighed again, shaking his head. Shea would probably know how to deal with this. She was so composed and invested and sure about what she felt and he wasn’t even sure about what to eat for dinner. His only certainties in life were the Collective, whisky, and his shuttle. Any attempt at a serious relationship with him was doomed to fail, and he couldn’t bear to stand her disappointed look again. He wanted to be the man she thought he was, but he simply wasn’t. He was deluding himself by trying and disappointing everyone else around him in the process. He wanted to give her – and Emma – something better, someone better, someone they deserved.

“Still wound-up in gloomy thoughts?” said Keema from the other side of the stall. He raised his gaze, she was enveloped in a lavender veil that covered her face enough to grant her a temporary anonymity. He shook away the jelly from his hand and moved away, followed by his Angaran friend.

“Have you found the info I asked you for?” he demanded, impatient, turning his back to her.

“You were more talkative the other day” she commented, amused, moving to his side “did you and Shea have a fight?”.

Reyes bit his lower lip, annoyed “We didn’t” he said, “can we act like the shady criminals we are, for once?”.

She chuckled handling him a datapad from under her tunic “I don’t know the content, I haven’t had time to browse it. It just arrived” she said touching his arm in an affectionate gesture “Do you really want to take this matter directly into your hands? It seems trivial”. He shook his head, unconvinced.

“They started taking Initiative personnel” he answered irritated “if we let this go it might send the wrong message”.

“She will be fine” commented Keema, with a knowing smile.

“I cannot risk it,” he said, before leaving.

He went quickly to his apartment in upper Kadara, to change clothes. The datapad was clear enough: as he suspected all the people who disappeared had one common characteristic. They all started frequenting Ambrosia, the new club in lower Kadara. Kian was complaining constantly about the recently opened competition, but there was nothing he could do without raising too many eyebrows – until now. He needed proof though, and information. He wore some neat white shirt and dark trousers, what you would wear in a fancy new club to hit on ladies and gentlemen. He rapidly smoothed back a few strands of hair with his hands and tossed the datapad on his bed. The ride to lower Kadara was infinite as usual. While descending to the slums, he could see the Tempest resting in the docks. He wondered if Shea started to resent his coldness if he was losing her already. Before heading to Ambrosia he went to his Tartarus room to leave his omni-tool behind, just in case. Also, he knew that as a rule, they didn’t accept them in.

Ambrosia had a strange allure. Its walls were made of a dark, smooth metal, and the signs outside it were purple. A bouncer was waiting outside, bored, attending a long, inevitable, queue. Over the door, a camera, to observe those who approached the building.

“Name?” asked the Krogan, a foot or so taller than him, definitely bulky.

“Reyes Vidal” he answered, waving his hands dramatically.

“Ah, the smuggler. You’re not on the list” he said back, after checking a datapad he kept in his hands. Of course, there was a list, there was always a list.

“Look buddy” he started, winking at the camera that was on top of the entrance door. “Can’t we arrange something? I can spare a few extra credits to get in”.

The Krogan nodded at the camera and then went silent. He was probably listening to a conversation through an earpiece of sorts. He looked like Shea when she was listening to SAM on their private channel. As much as a Krogan could look like the most beautiful creature of the Universe, that is.

“You’re a lucky bastard” the bouncer said, after a few seconds “you can go in. No omni-tool?”.

“No omni-tool” he repeated showing him his arms. The bouncer scanned him to check and he didn’t even have the time to say more: the Krogan pushed him in.

 

* * *

 

 

Shea stared blankly at the message icon on her omni-tool. Nothing. She had given up, in the end, that afternoon, and sent him a message to warn him he left the lucky necklace at her place, their place, but no answer yet. The longest she had to wait for an answer from Reyes was two hours, and only because he was in the middle of the raid of one of the remaining Outcast facilities and risked being shot. Three hours had passed now, and still no answer, not even a _text you later, I’m busy now_. One hour later, she tried to call him. Nothing. Two hours later, she tried to call again, and again, and again. Nothing. A thought, a fear, started creeping in the back of her mind. What if something happened to him?

She approached the large window that covered one of the walls of the prefab. Kadara Port was somewhere in that direction, her house was located, by request, high enough to overlook the Port. She could see the city starting to light up. She could also see the settlement, below her apartment, bustling with colonists trying to make a living, to make Kadara a safe place. They believed, they hoped and this made her hope as well that someday she could bring Emma there and they could play together in the pools or hike on the mountains, maybe not too close to the herb farm in the North. Perhaps Reyes just wanted to leave her and there was no mystery or impending danger to protect him from. He had been weird lately. She sighed, bringing her arms close to her chest, in a sort of hug. Someone had to believe in their relationship or it wouldn’t go anywhere and if that someone had to be her, so be it. She got out of the house and took the Nomad.

The guards wouldn’t let her pass without an invite or an appointment but she ignored them, pushing them away and entering Keema’s throne room without being announced or expected. Being the Pathfinder had its perks and one of them was that nobody could refuse her an audience. Especially the frontman of the Collective. When she entered the room, it was almost empty, unusually. Keema was speaking with one of the lieutenants, a Turian, the only other person inside. Not even the guards followed her in to stop her, they probably received specific orders. Shea knew the Turian’s face and little more, Reyes kept the details on the Collective to himself, but she remembered that he was present when Sloane was killed, so he had to be a trusted member of the inner circle.

“Are you sure you cannot reach him?” Shea overheard from Keema. She sounded worried.

“I tried all channels, official and non-official” he answered in a conceited tone, for a Turian, “nothing”. Then he whispered, but Shea heard him nevertheless: “I even went to Tartarus”. So, Reyes did disappear.

“I guess that we are all looking for my boyfriend” she announced, pushing back her own worries. She needed to be fully functional now. The Turian was startled, but Keema just leant back on her throne.

“Ryder” Keema said, seizing her as she moved closer to them “So you cannot reach him either?”. Shea shook her head, stopping a metre away from the throne, almost as a sign of respect for a symbol that didn’t mean anything. Keema was only the façade of the collective, she knew that perfectly, but she also was one of Reyes most trusted friends, and she respected that, valued it even. Keema sighed resting her head on her hand “This is serious”.

“I can help you find him, just point me where I need to go,” she said crossing her hands on her chest.

Keema lifted her head and shook it “I cannot put you in danger, Ryder” she calmly said, “if something happens to you…”.

“There won’t be any Reyes reaction to worry about if we don’t find him” she answered, not giving up.

“Keema…” interrupted the Turian lieutenant “Maybe Kian will let her in his room in Tartarus, though. He wouldn’t let me, he said he had instructions”.

“Kian knows me,” she said, trying to look confident “he’ll let me in”. She wasn’t sure about this part, but she needed to convince them to let her help. Keema looked at her for a few seconds, she was obviously in pain, wearing shoes that didn’t belong to her and having to take decisions she wasn’t prepared for.

“Don’t make me regret this, Pathfinder” she answered, in the end.

Kian reluctantly opened the door of Reyes private room in Tartarus, moaning around about the fact that he sent instructions to open to her only when he wasn’t there and that many thugs from the Collective came in the last few hours, trying to get in, so he had to put a bouncer to guard it because he wouldn’t risk losing a client like Reyes, whatever that meant.

She entered the room in silence and closed the door behind her, cutting off Kian’s complaints. It was the first time she could be in there alone. It was weird to her how the place, without Reyes, felt deprived of life, of its spirit. It was just a sad, badly illuminated room with a sofa, a table, a terminal. No dirty jokes about Asari crests, no laughter from the voice that she learned to love, no smile that shone in the shadows of the nightclub, no moans from a quickie between missions. Would her life feel as empty, if Reyes disappeared from it? Shea didn’t want to think about it.

The first think she did, was to look at his terminal, but she knew very well what she would find in it: nothing. Reyes didn’t want to leave any proof of what he did. He didn’t even protect it with a password because he was so careful that he didn’t need to. She looked around the room, clueless. Maybe under the table? She kneeled to search there, but the floor was pristine and the sofa connected directly with it, so no dark spaces to look at. Maybe a secret compartment somewhere? She scanned the walls and the floor. Nothing. She gave up to despair after taking apart every corner of the room.

“You might want to analyse the couch, Shea” suggested SAM, breaking the silence from their private channel “Perhaps if Mr Vidal wanted to hide something, he would do so in the place where he usually spends most of the time”. She could give it a go.

She sat where he used to, to catch a breath, and that’s when she felt it. There was something under her bum. She stood up and analysed the cushion. There was something hidden in its lining. She squeezed it, fondled it, and eventually found a hidden pocket and, inside it, Reyes’ omni-tool. Shea gasped in surprise. Reyes didn’t separate from it even when he had a shower or they were sleeping together. He never, never, took it off from his wrist. She knew he kept everything that he couldn’t destroy in there, secrets that could probably make Kadara crumble. Secrets that could destroy him, if someone wanted to. She opened the interface and chose to open its mail, maybe she could find something useful there. It asked for a password.

“Do you want me to crack it, Shea?” SAM asked. She couldn’t avoid thinking that he sounded curious.

“How long would it take?” Shea asked. She saw a random string being inputted in the form and then a warning. “Wrong password, 4 attempts left”. Shit.

“I cannot attempt a brute-force attack on this device,” he said and this time she wasn’t imagining it, SAM’s voice sounded genuinely full of respect, admiration even “Mr Vidal must really care about the safety of this device. I can try to find a backdoor, but I might not succeed. I suggest that you try to find the password yourself, Shea”.

“How would I do that?” she asked.

“It is possible that he changes it often” SAM reflected “therefore, it might be referring to some common recent experience between the two of you”.

Shea snorted, holding off an incredulous laugh “You are deluded, SAM, if you think that he would use my name as a password”.

“I know that this isn’t the case, I just tried that” he answered “but I am not deluded, I am an AI, Pathfinder” he addressed her by title, so he was probably offended “I analysed Mr Vidal’s behavioural patterns and they suggest that he probably did use a common reference as password, but I have not enough information to guess the correct one in only four attempts”.

“So, I am on my own,” she said.

“It appears so,” he confirmed. She couldn’t come up with anything and gave up thinking about it, eventually, but she could try something else. She opened the extranet browser. It wasn’t locked. The browser’s history was empty, of course, but she opened the search engine anyway. Bingo! The latest searches included a tutorial on how to brew whisky in a bathtub and Ambrosia, the new club in town. Why would Reyes go to a club that wasn’t Tartarus? He hated the place, said it made Kian even crankier.

When Shea turned up at the entrance of Ambrosia, jumping the queue, the Krogan bouncer crossed his arms and blocked her path. She could notice the club looked more of a brothel than an actual place where people went to drink. That made her angry and she didn’t like the bouncer’s attitude.

“Let me in,” she said, almost growling.

“Fuck off, Pathfinder,” he answered, unmoved, baring his teeth.

“Oh, you know who I am then,” she said, “so you know it’s not a good idea to piss me off”.

“This is a private club and I have strict instructions,” he said, lowering his head to almost touch her, he probably wanted to headbutt her. She didn’t flinch. “You are specifically banned from the place unless invited”.

“Should I have the Charlatan men kick your ass, then?” she said. She didn’t want to involve Keema too much, she wouldn’t appreciate her to go there alone anyway, but she didn’t want to lose precious time either. If Reyes was inside…

“You can call Morda for what I care, I won’t let you in” he answered, tapping her front with his, challenging her. Her hand went instinctively to the hilt of her sword.

“Maybe this is not a good idea, Shea,” said SAM “if Reyes is inside, making a scene – as you humans say - might put him in danger”. He had a point. She backed off, sharing with him one of the Krogan insults that Drack taught her. It was something about his egg being spoiled.

“Do you have a better idea?” she asked SAM when she was far enough from the place to do so safely.

“Well,” he offered “there is one place that we haven’t scanned for data yet”.

 

* * *

 

“Whisky,” Reyes said, annoyed. He tried to order by gesturing the bartender before, but the Salarian just stared at him blankly. He kept staring after he said it, so he repeated: “Whisky”.

“We don’t serve it,” he just answered tripping on his own words. He seemed confused, dazed even.

Reyes was outraged. How could they not serve whisky? “Then what do you serve here?” he asked instead, gesturing towards the bottles behind the bar that he now suspected, were mostly decorative.

The bartender shrugged “Ambrosia” was the only thing he said, then he moved to serve another customer. Reyes hated the place already and shutting it down had just become his primary goal, regardless of what he discovered.

He wouldn’t touch this Ambrosia drink that they were serving here, he decided by looking around. Everybody around him looked stoned and a little bit crazy. The club was crowded with bodies, moving at the rhythm of a bass heavy, repetitive music. Not his thing. They were all barely dressed and barely conscious, mesmerised, intoxicated, captivated. He could understand the allure of such a place, but he couldn’t share it, as he always needed to be in control of himself and the few things he cared about, it was the only way he could be so good at dancing in the chaos, the only way he knew how to live. Maybe this was the reason why he was so scared of Shea, of how she made him feel. She made him want something more, she made him want to build something good, to own something of his own. She believed in him. His happiness, his plans, his future, now were partly in the hands of somebody else. It was dangerous. The throbbing lights of the dance floor were giving him a headache. He needed to find somebody who could speak and get some info. He looked up, there was a private booth guarded by sturdy looking bouncers, a human, much bigger than him, and a Turian. In there, people were talking, so he assumed they were at least sentient, probably the only thinking minds of the club beside him. He approached the two guards.

“Reyes Vidal,” he said loudly, trying to talk over the music “I’d like to speak with your boss”. They ignored him. The next step was dropping names and see what would happen “Trent Oswald sent me here”. The human arched a brow, barely, he couldn’t tell about the Turian but the shared a glance and looked up towards the booth. They were listening to something he couldn’t hear, probably on a private channel. The human stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Go back to the dancefloor, have a drink, the boss will call you up later if you’re worthy,” the bouncer said, pushing him back.

There were no convincing these guys. He went back to the ground level, and to the bar. He still didn’t want to drink Ambrosia, so he leant onto the bar and waited. He almost decided to go back to Tartarus and give up, when a human silhouette appeared on the upper floor, hidden from sight by strobe lights behind her back. It was a woman, or so it seemed.

“People of the Ambrosia,” she said raising her arms, her voice amplified by a microphone. Everybody on the dance floor went gradually silent as the music faded off. “It’s time to choose the next candidates to join the Laestrygonians” Reyes still couldn’t see her face, but she sounded pleased with herself. The horde of addicts started to shake as if they were awakened by her words. She started to list them, repeating their names when necessary. They called a dozen of names before coming to “Reyes Vidal”. He lifted his head to follow the voice that called him. He was among the chosen? Interesting. He walked casually to where the others were standing, in front of the staircase that lead to the upper floor booth. Most of them looked dazed, except for a Turian, Castor, and a human whose name was Reese. They looked awake, at least. Castor looked dangerous too. Reyes was the last to be called. The two bouncers from before handed them cups full of Ambrosia and firmly invited them to drink.

“I pass,” said Reyes, sneering.

“Then you renounce your place?” asked the Turian bouncer. He moaned, then grasped the cup and drank it in one big gulp. He almost threw up. The drink left a metallic taste in his mouth and a grimace on his face.

“What shit do you put in this stuff?” Reyes asked, bringing a hand to support his head, that was becoming suddenly heavy.

“It’s the food of the Gods,” said the human, smirking. They were made go up the stairs, but the woman who spoke before already left. The private booth had a door that led to a platform where a shuttle was waiting for them.

The shuttle that was carrying them headed west, at least from what Reyes could tell, the Sulphur Springs, maybe? He could barely think straight now. Weird images started creeping at the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell the shapes and he started to suspect that they weren’t real, because he seemed the only one to notice something. He was sweating profusely. He could tell that Oblivion was an ingredient of Ambrosia, among other things because he saw it happen to many others before. He would soon feel out of breath and hallucinations were already there and would become more vivid in time and at the peak of the effects. He couldn’t know what other shit did they cut it with, so the rest was to be a surprise, but he knew that in a couple of hours he would start to feel sleepy and gradually lose consciousness. That would make him vulnerable. They were heading in a desert zone, away from everything. Reyes was starting to regret not warning anyone about him going to Ambrosia. He should have been more careful and prepared a backup plan, this was way out of his comfort zone.

The two thugs dropped them in the middle of a desert area, he could see the ground melting with the sky on the horizon, like water, because of the heat. Or was it real water, perhaps? He couldn’t tell, but he did see a pool from the shuttle, before landing. Another shuttle followed them. From below, he could see the woman from the club, or at least her shape. She spoke.

“Candidates, it’s your turn to shine!” she screamed, conceitedly “Although we have a problem I fear” she added, pretending to be sorry, with an innocent giggle “We only have one place in our cult. We’ll come back in a couple of hours, the one who is still standing by then can join us”. And with that, both the shuttles left the valley.

He could still hear the echo of the hysterical giggle in the empty valley, long after they were gone. They stood in silence for a few minutes, seizing each other. Time dilated, he could hear the wind howling in the emptiness of this slice of desert and his own breath was deafening. All his senses were on fire, although in a distorted, unreliable way. Fear distorted the shades around him and the light was too much to bear for his hallucinating eyes. Suddenly, one of them moved, and in a blink, they all become one, arms and legs mixed up in a labyrinthic composition, except for Reyes, who ran away as fast as his short breath allowed, as soon as the others moved. Someone tried to follow him but he was faster - and thankful for not having drunk more Ambrosia. He needed to reach higher ground, where he could control the situation. He walked and walked, he could not even dare to look back, until he reached the pool he saw before, from the shuttle. There was a tall rock on the side of the pool, topped by one of those weird corals in the shape of a mushroom that populated Kadara. He could see it swaying with the wind, but he was sure it was a hallucination because also the rock swayed, and rocks don’t do that. Maybe. He started to climb. The shirt stuck to his skin, impeding his movements and soon absorbed sand and dirt enough to become orange and yellowish. The smell of the sulphurous water made him nauseous and by the end of the climb, he could barely breathe. He lay there, waiting from the low that he knew would come at some point, feeling safe, completely unaware of the fact that his silhouette could be seen from below the translucent top of the plant.

He most probably just dozed off when an excruciating pain in the chest woke him up. He instinctively grabbed the assailant who screamed inhumanely while trying to stab him again, on the correct side this time, where the actual human heart was. It took him a few moments to recognise Castor, the Turian contestant, and push him away from him as strongly as the wound and the drug allowed. He was lucky enough that the Turian murderer didn’t remember much of human anatomy, in his daze, and couldn’t properly kill him, but he did stab him with something. They fought, and the cap of the coral mushroom failed them, bending enough to let them fall. Castor took the brunt of the fall and Reyes took the opportunity of him being stunned by the fall to run away. But he was too slow and his limbs still felt heavy in the water. Castor caught up with him and pressed his face down under the surface of the sulphurous pool.

Reyes would have screamed if he could. His eyes, nostrils and throat were on fire and of course, he was drowning. He had just enough time to think that he would never see Shea again, her cute freckles wrinkling up together when she smiled. And the way she smiled only for him. All his recent worries looked extremely silly against the probability of an imminent and painful death. They would never even find his body in the fucking never-ending waste where he was and she would have to grieve on an empty grave. The unyielding fingers of the Turian kept him down, but he couldn’t allow this. He couldn’t just die like that. He pushed up, with all the strength left in his body, to take a breath. He managed, but it was only a second before Cassius pushed him down again. He tried to kick him and it took him two attempts to hit the Turian’s knee. He lost balance, and Reyes used this in his favour to reverse the position, pushing Cassius down, on his back though. The Turian tried to fight it but laid down like that, he never had a chance. All Reyes had to do was pushing his tender collar down with his fingers as strongly as he could and wait. He pressed the fingers stronger, to make it faster. He scratched his arms deeply, but Reyes didn’t desist. At one point, Cassius stopped moving.

Reyes backed up on dry land, staring at the scene. The corpse of the Turian lay in the water, half floating, the water was purple because of the mix of their blood. Shit. He lowered his gaze to his chest and raised his hand to touch the wound, he forgot about that. Was that the reason why he was feeling suddenly cold? He blacked out momentarily, he must’ve lost a lot of blood. He searched for shuttles in the sky, they said they would come back for them. Nothing. He started to feel dizzy and right before fainting, he could see Shea’s smile and her freckled, wrinkled up nose, if only for a moment.

 

* * *

 

 

Shea breathed slowly. Inhale, exhale, the solid grey door was still standing between them and their target, it didn’t move. She raised her hand to the handle and stopped. It was the first time she came back to Reyes’ apartment in a long time. It had been their refuge for some months after they got together, the place where they would go when they wanted to leave everything else – duty, responsibilities, needy friends – outside.

Keema beside her was fidgeting. “Are you sure that it’s okay if I come here?” she asked. She wasn’t, of course. She knew Reyes’ apartment was a sort of secret, that its closest associates knew where it was, but weren’t allowed in. Urgency required a sort of disrespect for the rules. Reyes had been missing for hours and it wasn’t exactly like him to do that, not without at least conjuring a precarious but efficient backup plan. Shea sighed, lowered the handle, went in.

The room was bare, simply furnished, as she remembered. She could still smell the faint hint of Reyes’ cologne coming from the small bathroom.

“Shea” commented SAM, from her omni-tool “might I suggest that we start from the main room?”.

She nodded “Okay SAM,” and raised her arm to activate the scanner. It was weird, almost savage, to see the room dissected by the orange rays of the scanner. All their memories, all his papers, and mementoes, and belongings were there. A pile of unwashed clothes in the corner, a bottle of whisky left unfinished on the table, a rock painted by an Angaran child from Havarl, where he delivered a cargo of essentials once, his first job with the Angara, he told her, the one when he met Keema.

Keema snickered, grabbing the rock in her hands, it was a sad laughter “So he _did_ care” the Angara remarked. Shea couldn’t repress a smile, but she kept scanning nevertheless. He kept a diary, a paper diary. Weird, old style, sentimental. Just like Reyes. The scanner beeped when she went through his bed. A datapad? Shea sat on the undone bed, while Keema watched her from a metre or so, she didn’t feel comfortable there, as if she was trespassing. Well, they were, technically.

“It must the report I brought him before he vanished,” Keema said, fiddling with her hands. Shea read it, but it was useless: it led to Ambrosia and going there wasn’t an option, but it was a confirmation that he was indeed investigating the disappearances and that he probably went there. But was he still there? How could they know? Keema looked at her as if she was transfixed by a revelation “His tracker!” she said, grabbing Shea’s arms. Shea stared back at her, confused.

“Wait, Reyes has a tracker?” she asked, scratching her head.

“Well,” Keema said, unsure “we never actually needed it, but it doesn’t hurt to try”.

“How does it work?” Shea inquired with a quizzical look on her face.

“It’s a tracker under his skin, it should be undetectable with normal scanners and it can be traced through his omni-tool” Keema answered “the protocol called for him to drop it somewhere in the event Sloane and his men went for him or in case he went undercover for some mission, he has several safe spots, one of them…”

“Is Tartarus, inside the lining of the sofa cushion?” she said taking Reyes’ omni-tool out of her pocket.

Keema lightened up and clapped at the sight “Now you only need to activate the tracker software!” she said, sitting down on the bed beside her.

Shea opened the omni-tool’s interface and browsed the apps. SAM interfaced with it directly and swiped them all to point out a rather inconspicuous icon named Plan B. The password form came up immediately after, flashing and telling that she had four attempts left. “Shit”.

Keema turned to her amused “Oh, you don’t know the password, Pathfinder?” Shea shook her head, with a sorry look on her face “But you should”. Keema smiled and digited on the omni-tool a short phrase, that Shea recognised immediately: “Good night and stay safe”. She felt tears filling up her eyes, but she managed to contain them. She couldn’t speak. She remembered him mentioning it while drunk, the first time they met back in the Milky Way, several lives ago, he was a fan of her news bulletin on Alliance News Network.

Those were her last words on air, the last sentence she spoke every night to her audience, her daily goodbye to the soldiers, adventurers, lowlifes and common people who watched her. It was her catchphrase, she would smile and wish them good luck for their following day, well aware of the dangers the people who followed her show would face before seeing her again on a screen, the night after. She chose to end her career with the same sentence, as if it was a night like the others. He remembered. That small detail of her long-lost life made it to Andromeda as a short string of code in the Charlatan’s omni-tool. Shea brought a hand to cover her mouth, to stop herself from crying in front of Keema. She managed to recollect her composure when a marker appeared on the holographic screen of the omni-tool. She zoomed out the map, it was a wasteland west of town, beyond the Sulphurous Spring, away from settlements. Keema and Shea looked at each other.

“It might be malfunctioning,” said the Angara.

“Not according to my analysis” intervened SAM “although the tracker appears to have stopped sending coordinates approximately an hour ago”.

“It’s worth a try” concluded Shea.

The Nomad bounced and sprinted wildly on the rocks, on water, on the sand and on a few living animals that Shea didn’t bother trying to avoid while rushing to the nav point where the tracker stopped working. They had to stop though, a couple of hundreds of metres before. Shea spotted, and SAM echoed it in their private channel, that there was an anomaly on the ground. She didn’t need a scanner to see it.

“Holy shit,” she said, considering the patch of blood, footprints, and garbage that was in front of the Nomad. Keema was next to her inside the vehicle, speechless “Shall we goo and take a look?” she offered. The Angara nodded.

They left the Nomad to analyse the patch of land where an uncountable mass of people evidently fought. Shea tried to scan it, and SAM’s analysis couldn’t precisely determine what happened. The prints were to confused to tell apart. There was a lot of blood though, and several bodies apparently laid there lifeless for a certain amount of time, before being taken away. This was clearly a murder scene but without bodies. She could spot a knife, a crude tool that was used to hurt somebody, a human based on the colour of the blood, and pieces of clothing that previously belonged to those who were there.

“Have you ever seen something like this?” asked Shea, but Keema couldn’t speak, she barely shook her head.

Two sets of footprints left the scene.

“A Human and a Turian,” remarked SAM, dry “the human footprints are compatible with Mr Vidal’s height and weight”. At least he didn’t die there, Shea thought. They followed them in religious silence, but the footprints stopped at the base of one of those coralline mushrooms that grew on Kadara. She looked up, he probably climbed it. Then she looked down and almost screamed. The pool was still tinted purple.

“A mix of Human and Turian blood,” SAM noticed “the tracker’s signal ends here”.

“Can you analyse the blood?” asked Shea, her voice cracking, hear eyes teary.

“I cannot discern the Turian’s,” SAM said, and then waited a few seconds, leaving her the time to realise it herself “the Human’s is Mr Vidal’s” it paused “I’m sorry Shea”.

The words sunk into her heart like blades and she felt so heavy that she had to kneel under the coral mushroom, staring at the pool, unable to say anything.

Keema broke her silence “Did he lose enough to die?” she offered in a sweet tone, putting her hand on the shoulder of the Pathfinder.

“I’m unable to determine that” answered SAM “the blood in the pool is diluted, but I can estimate that there is a 30% chance that he survived the fight. Nevertheless, his body is not here, therefore I can only offer conjectures”.

Keema smiled, squeezing Shea’s shoulder “Thirty percent is enough for Reyes Vidal,” she said. Shea looked up at her. She looked in pain, like her, but hopeful. She needed to make at least the effort. She started scanning, again, around the pool.

On the other side of it, there was a patch of blood that was still a bit wet. “Is it Reyes’?” asked Shea. SAM confirmed it. He heart jumped in her chest: there were signs of dragging and two sets of footprints, that lead to an area that was plain, no sets of footprints, only some weird circular marks on the sides.

“It appears to be the landing zone of a shuttle” SAM said.

“Can you trace where it went?” she asked, with a faint trace of hope taking gradually space in her heart and transpiring in her voice.

“Negative” he answered “but I analysed the surroundings and I found a heavily guarded cave five klicks away in this direction. I detect numerous heat signatures”.

Shea turned around to face Keema and grinned “We better call for reinforcements then”.

 

* * *

 

 

He opened his eyes but the room was dark. At first, he couldn’t see a thing. Reyes instinctively raised his hand to his bare chest and patted it, there was medi-pack gel on his wound, regenerating the tissue, numbing the pain. It was a deep wound though, medi-pack alone wouldn’t be enough. He could still feel some pain just by stroking his skin. He couldn’t find his shirt by patting around the bunk where he was laying, but he suspected it was beyond recovery anyway.  He instinctively patted his collar to find it empty, he probably lost his lucky charm somewhen during the fight, shit. He had a metal taste in his mouth and he was parched. Slowly, his eyes adapted to the shadows and he finally discovered that he wasn’t alone. A pale, emaciated woman stared at him, without winking. Her eyes were grey and her head was shaved, she barely looked like a person, but only in shape.

“Hello,” he said, trying to stand up. His head was throbbing and his stomach grumbled. With the drugs and the fact that he hadn’t been eating since who knows when he was starting to feel hungry. Very hungry. She didn’t speak, but gestured him to follow her and then left the room.

Reyes sighed and coerced his limbs into a standing position. He leant on the wall, realising that it was dug in the rock. He must have been underground, and now the fact that the air was chilly and damp made sense. How far, though? He couldn’t tell. He followed the white miss in the tunnel.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked, relying on the walls around him to walk straight.

She didn’t reply, as she never replied in the following five minutes or so, while she led him deeper and deeper under the surface, swaying in her plain white robe with no sleeves that looked more like a repurposed sack than actual clothing. He finally started to see a light getting closer, in front of them, beyond the ghastly pale girl. As soon as she entered the room, she moved to the side, to let Reyes go inside.

Rays of light illuminated the centre of the cave, where a huge bonfire was laid and several humanoids of various species were gathered. He felt the sweet and sour smell of roasting meat and felt the craving growing in his guts. He got closer until he could see the carcases roasting. The closest one was giving him an empty stare, its head in front of his, and amidst the burning skin and hair, and exploding innards, he could still recognise the melting blue eyes of Reese, one of the “contestants” that were gathered in Ambrosia with him.

Reyes backed off, trying to resist the urge to throw up. Any trace of hunger vanished. He kneeled, stumbling onto his own feet, disgusted and he gave in to the revulsion, eventually, although nothing but bile would come out of his empty stomach.

“Don’t worry, you’ll change your mind” said a familiar female voice. He raised his face, looking at the woman who gave orders in Ambrosia first and then in the wasteland. He could see her face now, anonymous traits crowned by brown shaggy hair. He tried to pinpoint her features, they were familiar too, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen her. “The hunger will take you too, eventually,” she said, laughing hysterically.

Reyes tried to open his mouth to talk, but then he was enveloped in the sweet scent of death and decay and had to put a hand on his mouth to avoid throwing up again. “Who the fuck are you?” he managed to gasp.

“I was just a no one like many others in Kadara Port,” she said, resting her hands on the hips “not unlike you, Reyes Vidal, smuggler” her lips let go a giggle that sounded almost impish, inhumane. “My name was Remi Tamayo, but now I’m something much greater than that, I’m the Priestess of the Laestrygonians” she screamed, widening her arms in a dramatic gesture over her head and laughing again, less and less human with every sentence she spoke. He remembered her now. She was just a random lowlife making a living in Kadara’s alleys, one of Sloane’s thugs sent her away from town by mistake, thinking she didn’t pay her protection fee, and she was lost, they thought, maybe in the desert or eaten alive by animals. “They wanted me as a sacrifice, but I could see their Gods and they made me one of them” she whispered then, bending down until her face was close to his, her eyes wide open “I’m their First, now!”.

Reyes was paralysed, he couldn’t back up as he wanted. All he could do was to ask “Why have you brought me here?”.

“To eat you,” she said, giggling, staying too close to him making him uneasy “No, just joking. We need someone to get us supplies to take over Kadara, of course” she explained and moved slightly to the side to let him see the banquet of Human, Turian, and whatever else flesh that was roasting. She still kept her head close to his, though. “Apparently, you are the best, so let’s get it over with the initiation and let’s start talking business. It’s time to take down the Charlatan”. She raised a hand to point at the roasting meat, inviting him to partake of the meal. When he hesitated, she pulled him up, making him stand. They walked towards the flesh fest, where several cannibals were salivating, their short teeth consumed, eager for the meal but waiting, probably for him to start the ritual. He could feel the heat of the fire caressing his skin and he could see the melted eyes of the body who was once Reese, dripping laconic in the fire. He wanted to throw up again but was sure that nothing was left in his stomach, not even bile.

“What if I refuse?” he asked, staring at the fire without watching.

“Oh,” she said, making a displeased noise and leaning closer to him to grab his bare arm “You know what will happen then” she stood on her tiptoes and licked his face, unceremoniously, slowly enough to send shivers down his spine and give him goose bumps. She then moved away from him, leaving his arm and waiting.

Reyes couldn’t see a way out. The only entrance he could see from where he stood was the one from where he came in, and it didn’t lead to the surface. There must have been another, probably behind the bonfire, but he wasn’t sure he could reach it, before getting eaten alive.

“Don’t test our patience, Reyes Vidal” Remi said, eagerly. She looked craving like she almost hoped he refused to eat him too.

He couldn’t run, he couldn’t fight them all, he definitely couldn’t throw himself into the fire and hope for a relatively quick death before getting eaten, because that would have made them happier. The only way out was staring at him with empty eye sockets and flaming hair. He swallowed, terrified, and closed his eyes. He would have prayed if he could, but the only thing he believed in, the only person he believed in, was probably crying in an empty apartment, thinking that he left her or that he died, or that he was an asshole. He raised his hand to move towards the carcas, almost touching it and then… a sudden bang exploded behind the walls of the cave, in an indefinite place above them, possibly closer to the surface.

The cannibals all turned around at once, then turned towards Remi Tamayo, expectant. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, screaming and waving her hands “We are under attack, go defend the temple!”. They all stumbled away, their bony limbs uselessly swaying while they walked towards the exit. She turned his back at him, observing her minions run away. It was exactly what he needed.

He wrapped his arms around her neck from behind, in a deadly embrace. Even if he wouldn’t come out of this alive, she had to go. Reyes tightened and tightened his grasp, but she fought back, scratching, kicking, grunting, punching. He wasn’t strong enough to finish her quickly, weakened by the wound, the fasting, the drugs. She finally remembered his weakness and sunk her nails, her fingers, deep into his wound, reopening it. When he let her go instinctively, she kicked a pinch of ashes and embers on his face, blinding him and burning him. He brought his hands to his face to clean it, but she didn’t leave him the time to do it, she kicked his face, hitting his hands. He felt a stinging pain, one or more of his fingers cracked at the impact.

“What’s wrong with you Reyes Vidal?” she snarled, kicking his chest and forcing him to fall down on the ground with a muted scream. “I thought you could be one of us” she added and pressed her foot on his throat. “Well,” she licked her lips, pressing the foot deeper on his throat, while he desperately tried to grab with his broken fingers her ankle to breathe “You will become part of us, only in a different way”. He tried to kick her, but couldn’t reach her, his fingers were painlessly grasping at her calf, useless. While he stared frightened at her wide open drugged, crazy eyes, he realised in despair that his last sight before dying would have been the grin of a predator, not the warm, peaceful, freckled smile of Shea Ryder. When he almost gave up on his chances of survival, though, he glimpsed a bright blueish light crossing the room through the fire, he heard a crash above him, and he finally could breathe again.

 

* * *

 

 

“You will become part of us, only in a different way” Shea could hear, on the other side of the room. It was impossible for her to see what was happening but she thought she heard Reyes’ name and she definitely heard him scream before. She knew what was in the other rooms, she saw it while infiltrating the cave to get to him while the Collective forces were taking out most of the followers of this crazy cannibalistic cult. There was no time to waste in sophisticated tactics. She charged, directed approximately at the source of the voice.

The impact was so violent they both ended up crashing against a wall to the other side of the cavern. The feral woman bounced against it and was dazed by the hit. Shea didn’t leave her the time to get back up, and hit her on her face with a kick. The woman fell on the floor, seemingly unconscious.

“Nobody messes with my boyfriend, bitch,” she said, drawing her sword and getting close to examine her. She scanned her.

“It appears to be an exile called Remi Tamayo,” noticed SAM, analysing her biometric data “she was mistakenly removed from Kadara Port months ago. We’ve been asked to find her…”.

“But we never did. I know SAM, thanks” Shea interrupted, she remembered the name. They looked for her in a shack in the wasteland, but couldn’t find her. She felt guilty. This could have been avoided if she had been more through, but first, it was the mess on Kadara, then the Archon, then Meridian and then the colonisation effort. She completely forgot about Remi Tamayo. She wanted to kill her, sure, but she also felt responsible. She reluctantly put her sword back in its sheath, kneeled down and shackled her. “The Initiative and the Collective will have to fight over who gets to judge you, but you will be put on trial, nevertheless” she whispered, while she closed the shackles on her wrists and ankles. Soon Reyes’ men would be there. She turned around to take care of him, who was battered and shocked. He lay on the floor, staring at her in a daze.

“Am I dead?” he asked, confused, while she was smiling and kneeling over him to assess his situation.

“Well, after meeting the cannibals I wouldn’t be too surprised of zombies” she joked, scanning him for wounds. He would need a couple of weeks of rest and surgery, to say the least, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed “but I’m pretty sure you are alive”.

They brought him out and he lost consciousness somewhere on the road between the cave and Kadara. Shea and Keema made sure to take him to his apartment, where they put him to rest in his bed, and Lexi treated the most urgent matters, although she wasn’t pleased with having to leave the Tempest. She wanted to bring him to her, _their_ , apartment at the colony, but then she thought he might feel more comfortable where he chose to keep all his memories and treasures, rather than an empty, aseptic, Initiative prefab. He started regaining consciousness in the evening, while she was still there, guarding him. She fastened his lucky charm at his neck, where it belonged.

Reyes sighed “I feel weird,” he said, finally resting his head on a proper pillow.

“You sure do” she answered, “it’s just the effects of Oblivion withdrawal, we can treat that”.

“Oh right,” he said, sitting up like he remembered suddenly something very important “that Ambrosia thing, what was it made of?”

Shea grimaced “You don’t really want to know” was her answer.

“Come on Shea, spare me the misery of having to insist” he sounded annoyed and exhausted.

“Okay,” she answered cautiously “it was mainly blood, Oblivion and other tissue, sometimes liver, not necessarily human though”.

“There was also a Turian blend for dextro-based organisms” SAM added, smugly.

He groaned, sinking his head in the pillow again. Shea leant in to kiss him on his forehead.

“You should not dwell on it too much,” she said, sweetly “it’s over and you need to rest”.

“Will you stay here with me?” he asked, hopeful, weary, grabbing gently her arm and stroking it with his aching fingers that were not completely fixed yet. Shea could tell by the fact that his hands were still shaking.

“Only for a while” Shea answered, her tone oozing doubt “Someone needs to take care of Tamayo’s trial or Kadara will be buried in bills and forms from the Nexus”. She lowered her gaze and retreated her arm “Actually no, I have to go back to the apartment to send my report now. Keema will come to help, though, and I’ll be back after it’s over”. Reyes looked at her, puzzled. She couldn’t explain it but in truth, she felt guilty about the whole thing. She pressured Reyes into staying at her place when it was clear he felt more comfortable here, she didn’t save Remi Tamayo before she became a monster, she was ultimately a disaster as a girlfriend and as a Pathfinder and it was only out of sheer luck that this didn’t end in a complete tragedy. Still, many people lost their lives, and even if nobody held her accountable, she still felt responsible.

“Good night and stay safe, Reyes” she whispered in one last kiss, before leaving. She couldn’t know it, but as soon as she closed the apartment door behind her with a sigh, Reyes finally realised how empty the place felt without her.

She managed to finish her report in the middle of the night, and right after, director Tann called to discuss it. _No rest for the wicked_ , she thought, answering with an exasperated sigh.

“Pathfinder, your report was very interesting but I don’t think we should let the Collective…” started Tann from the terminal, as annoying as usual.

“The Collective is an ally and it is one of their operatives that they kidnapped” Shea interrupted him, dry, professional, cold.

“But we lost one of ours as well” he objected. She rolled her eyes.

“We did, and the family will be compensated by the Collective when this is over, but their losses are worse than ours, and the territory is under their jurisdiction as per the treaty _you_ signed”.

“Fair enough” he conceded, reluctantly “but we’ll have to discuss security with them. I want some of Kandros’ men in the Port”.

“I’ll let you discuss this with their leader,” Shea said, as soon as he’s able to stand – and eat – again, she thought.

“But…” somebody knocked at the door and she took advantage of this to close the communication abruptly. She went to the door and opened it. It was Reyes.

He was carrying, well limping with, a cardboard box full of clutter. She saw the small rock painted by the Angara child peeking out of the box, on top of other useless things.

“Wha…?” she started, astounded “You should be resting”.

“I couldn’t sleep all alone in that stinky room,” he said with a fake pout “besides, this apartment is awful, I thought I could help you redecorate” she opened her mouth in surprise “and do the groceries, your pantry is shamefully empty”.

She smiled and took the box from him, then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him briefly on his lips “Come in, then”.

 


End file.
